Category — Ministry Update

We are finally back in New York after a month of intensive traveling throughout the state of Maine. After visiting seven churches and more small groups, we are filled with gratitude as God continually demonstrated His faithfulness throughout the time we were there.

Let me pick up where we left off since the last update. Originally, after the final meeting we had in June, we were planning on returning to New York. However, some of the locals convinced us that we needed to stay for their July 4th celebration. They mentioned that there would be a lot of food and the world’s fastest lobster fishing boat race, and, shameless to say, we were sold.

On June 28th, we visited the Head of the River Baptist Church in Cutler, Maine. It was our joy to share our passion with the people who were attending this small church. Among the attendees was Dr. Greg Beale from Wheaton Graduate School, who used to be the president of the Evangelical Theological Society a few years ago. It was refreshing to talk to him since I miss being around people who are active in the field of theological education. Amy and I enjoyed getting to know Head of the River’s Pastor Scott and his family. We would love to continue to keep in touch with their church.

That evening, we visited Beals Christian Advent Church on Beals Island, Maine. We spoke to the congregation there, and some of them made pledges to support us through regular giving. It was our joy to get to know their pastor, Josh, and his family, who were very excited about our ministry. We will be praying for their ministry as well.

After that Sunday, we were done with our planned meetings but wanted to meet more people and inform them of the spiritual need in Tokyo. On Thursday, I arranged a meeting with one of the members of Maine Coast Baptist Church, Dr. Allen Gregory, who has started his own unique ministry with a local investor to specifically aim to reach the lost in his local community with the Gospel. Over an outstanding lobster lunch, we discussed how Amy and I can increase our ministry effectiveness. Right before I left, he suggested that I should call Pastor Jerry Mick, senior pastor of Bangor Baptist Church, in Bangor, Maine.

Although I didn’t know anything about this church prior to our meeting, right after I left Dr. Gregory’s office I quickly prayed and called Pastor Jerry’s number, not knowing what to expect. We only had two days left in Maine, and once we left the state we knew that we could not return for a long time due to its distance from where we would be.

After talking to Pastor Jerry on the phone for three minutes or so, he invited me to share our ministry to him on Friday morning. I was so grateful to the Lord, as I was not expecting to be able to meet him in person. In spite of his church office being closed that day due to the weekend and, as I later found out, being the pastor of one of the biggest churches in Maine, he was willing to meet with me.

When I arrived at the church, I did not know what to expect since our conversation was somewhat brief the day before. I was anticipating anything from a 15-minute meeting where he would just tell me to leave our information with him, to a meaningful 45-minute meeting where I could share who we are more in-depth. After we started to share, our meeting ended up being close to two hours, where I was able to share about our ministry and our strategy pretty thoroughly.

To make the long story short, he invited us back to his church for their month-long missions conference, with all of our traveling expense being covered by the church. Again, this would not have happened if we did not decide to stay one week longer and actively pursue new and exciting places to share our commitment to serve the Lord in Tokyo.

We thank God once again for orchestrating these events to allow us to experience something far greater than what we could have hoped for. Praise the Lord for going before us to pave the way so that His truth can triumph in Tokyo through our ministry.

We miss everyone back in Maine, and we would stay there longer if we could. But we want to continue to move forward with our calling so that their prayers and support can bear fruits in Tokyo, where we need to be for the sake of the Gospel.

We stayed in Maine until July 5th. Due to bad weather, the lobster boat race which was our original reason to stay was canceled. But it didn’t matter because we were able to meet new people that we would not have been able to if we didn’t stay longer, and we got to spend the weekend with our friends that we came to love.

Please continue to pray for us, that God will continue to stir the hearts of those who were exposed to the spiritual needs of those who live in Tokyo, and that they will do something about it through us.

Also pray for us during the next forty days as Amy and I will be separated for that duration to accomplish the different aspects of our ministry. I am flying back to Japan today (7/10) to “admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone” (1 Thess. 5:14) in our church community in Tokyo. It will be challenging as I would be laying down the foundation for the changes that we will bring about in the near future. It is human nature to react in one way or another whenever new and sizable changes are introduced. It is a process that requires utmost carefulness, wisdom, and moreover, unwavering God-given conviction to do what is right in His sight with excellence. I will be speaking over ten times during this time. We also covet your prayers for Amy as she drives down to Alabama to be with her family for the duration. She will update our sending church with our progress. Anyway, it is a very long time for us to be apart, and we would appreciate your encouragement during this time.

We will continue to update you with what we will be doing during this period so that you can pray for us effectively. Please continue to pray for us but also consider financially partnering with us as God leads through regular giving. We cannot leave the country until God raises enough people to pledge 100% of our support. We still need $4,000 monthly pledges. Every dollar counts. Please ask God to make you into one of those men or women who will give generously so that through your giving more Japanese souls will be saved.

Again, it is not too late to bless us with financial assistance as I fly to Tokyo by clicking the “donate” button to the left. A roundtrip flight to Japan costs somewhere around $1,000. You giving can make a big difference.

One final thing. I have noticed that many of you have visited this site but have not subscribed to it. Please take a minute to subscribe to our site today because it is free and it will notify you whenever we update our blog so you don’t miss a thing!

Thanks so much for visiting our website again. We cannot wait to tell you what God is doing in our next update.

Let me begin this post by mentioning how God is answering your prayers by demonstrating His faithfulness in our lives.

First, we are praising God because one of the churches that we have been visiting, Faith Bible Church in Vineland, NJ, decided to take us up as their missionaries. Not only do we feel so privileged to be able to represent such an exemplary church in their commitment to know God’s Word and live it out, but we are also utterly humbled by how they are going to provide 8% of our entire support. Praise the Lord. But more than their financial support, which is incredible, we are excited to partner with them because of the relational support which they provide for us. Over the months we have been able to develop great friendships with the people from the church, and we are excited to be able to keep in touch because of the new relationship we have with them.

Another demonstration of God’s faithfulness can be witnessed in how God chose to use our friends, Eric and Jill Holmes, as His choice instruments to minister to us by taking care of our problem-ridden vehicle. Perhaps some of you know that our main car, which we originally wanted to use for our support discovery trip, unexpectedly gave up the ghost suddenly last month. So, at the last minute we had to change our plan and use our backup vehicle, which we were planning on selling because of all the problems it had. When it comes to cars, after growing up for most of my life in cities, I simply don’t know enough to be able to talk about them intelligently. I said, partly joking, in the past that, “I know a lot about cars. I can usually look at a car’s headlights and tell you exactly which way it’s coming.” It is very ironic that I am married to a mechanic’s daughter.

Anyway, before we left Schroon Lake we set apart $2,000 to repair the major vehicle problems once we got to Maine. Before we went, I at least knew that the timing belt had to be changed, and I’ve heard of people taking about how expensive they are to replace. Well, to make the long story short, Eric, Jill, and their son, Timmy, who run their family-owned auto body shop, prayerfully decided that they would pay the whole expense to fix our car. We were aware of their financial situation to some extent, so we were definitely not counting on them to work on our car for free. Yet, in spite of their own needs, they decided to work on our car for us as a service to the Lord. We were simply overwhelmed by gratitude for God’s grace, which moved them to meet our needs in such a critical way.

Our experience reminded us that we are not commanded to give generously when we have enough for ourselves, but as God allows us to see the various needs of others that He brings into our lives. We were definitely joyous to see God’s people living out the faith and being part of God’s mission. Please pray that God would continuously meet their needs as they serve Him sacrificially.

Let me share a few more because there are so many things that God is doing that are astonishing. On the 14th, we were supposed to visit Machias Christian Fellowship (Machias, ME)  to share about our passion. However, on the night of the 13th, we were told that we had to reschedule our visit. Understandably, we were disappointed because we wanted to fill every Sunday with a meeting or two. We tried to get into other churches, but being so last–minute, nothing worked out for us. When the morning came, we decided to go to Faith Bible Fellowship, a church we had tried to get into before we came up to Maine but with which we could not schedule a meeting.

Once we entered the building, the pastor came up to me and asked me, “Are you ready to speak?” While I wasn’t expecting that, I responded affirmatively. I got to share my testimony, our ministry, and our passion. The people responded very positively, and Amy is addressing the youths of that church tonight . It is amazing how God postponed our original meeting so we could speak at a church that we were not able to get into originally. Our God is amazing.

That same night we went to Maine Coast Baptist Church to share. When we got there, we only saw a few cars in the parking lot, so we were somewhat discouraged, almost forgetting the goodness of God that we experienced earlier that morning. When I went in, we saw our friend from WOLBI, Ruth Siles, standing in the sound booth! What’s the chance of seeing someone we knew in such a random church in Maine? While the crowd as not as big as we expected, we gave everything we had. At the end, it doesn’t matter whether it is a crowd of 600 or 12. We still give all we’ve got regardless of the size of the audience because we believe it is our responsibility to minister to those whom God brings into our lives. After our presentation, we felt God’s work in people’s lives as we fellowshiped with one another. At the end, they took a love offering for us and on our way home we discovered that its amount was over $1,100. Again, how can one not see God’s amazing work in our experience?

Finally, this past Sunday (6/21), we visited Machias Christian Fellowship in the morning and Larrabee Baptist Church in the evening. The evening service was interesting because many believers from Machias Christian Fellowship came to join us to hear our fuller ministry presentation. People were friendly and very attentive to what we had to share. After the service, the pastor emphasized the effectiveness of sending “native” missionaries back to their country. We are returning to Machias Christian Fellowship tomorrow night to fellowship with those who are specifically interested in our ministry in Tokyo.

Overall, we are blessed to be in Maine and meet all of these people who are committed to live out their faith in these rural communities. Again, we were reminded that it is not the amount of people or wealth that makes a lasting difference in missions. What makes the difference is the same grace of God which is at work in His people, whether you’re in Tokyo or a rural town in ME which you never heard of. It is God graciously orchestrating people who are committed to serve God as missionaries with those who want to see God’s glory being manifested in places where the Gospel is not effectively preached.

Sorry that this post is rather long, but God has been doing so much in our lives, and we wanted to share everything that He has been doing. Please continue to partner with us through prayer, because you get to experience God’s faithfulness being actualized through us. It is exciting to be part of a ministry where God is unmistakably active.

By the way, this post will be incomplete without encouraging you to also partner with us through regular giving. While it is exciting to see God perform these works in the States, we need to get to Japan eventually. It will not be possible without the support of people who are interested in our ministry and who believe in our ability to make a difference through God’s grace. One of the great American writers, Gertrude Stein, once said, “Silent gratitude isn’t very much use to anyone.” In similar ways, silent support isn’t very much use to missionaries who are going out “for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles” (3 John 1:7).  If God has blessed you, and you are witnessing God’s work through us, please prayerfully partner with us. Thank you again for reading. By the way, subscribe to our website so you can be informed whenever we update our main content so never miss our ministry updates. God bless.

By His grace,
Kazu & Amy

Dear friends and family,

The time has come. It has finally arrived. We are no longer employed. We are finally leaving the comfort of having a steady income and a place where we can call home. While it is absolutely frightening to think about the decision we’ve made, we’ve never been so excited to see what God is going to do and how He is going to provide all of our needs as we strive to serve Him unreservedly.

For some of you who are getting to know us for the first time, we are Kazu and Amy Kato, missionaries with Fellowship International Mission (FIM) heading to Tokyo, Japan. We are truly burdened to reach more than 35.6 million people* who live in the Greater Tokyo Area that are lost, not experiencing the hope which can be found in Jesus Christ.

Protestant Christians in Japan constitute a religious minority of 0.4% today.* More sadly, the number of biblically faithful Christians who attend churches in Tokyo is estimated to be no more than 0.03% of the city population.

God has uniquely equipped us (Amy and Kazu) to be able to reach those people who are considered to be extremely difficult to reach with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Kazu is a fourth-generation Japanese Christian who spent most of his life living in major cities in the United States and Japan. His bilingual ability, combined with his formal biblical training and passion for city people, will only strengthen his ability to communicate God’s Word effectively to those living in Tokyo. Amy is also blessed with a personality that transcends cultures and countries. She has a natural ability to befriend people from various backgrounds, allowing her to attract many people to Christ. You can read more about us in the “About/Kazu & Amy” page, which you can find on the left column of this page.

Anyway, I hope you keep visiting our site to find out what God is doing as we begin our journey as we travel around the country and the world, motivating enough people to pray for us and support us to get us over to Tokyo this year. We need all of your prayers and support in order to accomplish something greater together in Tokyo for God’s glory. Please subscribed to our RSS feed to keep in touch with us. If you don’t know what I am talking about, visit this link. If you are, at this time, interested in financially contributing to God’s cause through us, please click the link to your left which says “Ways to Help.” It will give you a link which you can click to receive the form which you can use to support us monthly. We still need to raise $4,000 a month on top of what we have. But I know this would be possible through people like you whom God has blessed richly. Please invest in us so that God may use all of us together to bring the Gospel to one of the most un-evangelized cities in the world.

In many ways, our Web site is incomplete (as you can tell). We will continue to improve it so you can find out what God is doing through us immediately and effectively. This week we are moving to Maine to visit six churches, Lord willing. Please pray for us or leave messages to us via “Shout Box,” to the right, or by e-mail. Thank you for reading this. God bless.

By His grace,

Kazu and Amy